PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 Need to Offer Convenience, Epic Games Says

Next-gen consoles should strive to make things easier for gamers

Next gen consoles should deliver content easily

Epic Games' Mark Rein has once again talked about next-generation consoles and how they need to offer convenience when it comes to downloading and playing games, not just power through their PC-like hardware configurations.

The PlayStation 4 and Xbox 720 are expected to appear on the market at the end of the year, despite the fact that Sony hasn't even presented the final design of its PlayStation 4 and that Microsoft isn't even talking about the next Xbox device.

Epic Games, however, has certainly been in talks with the two companies about the technical side of their new consoles, largely because its Unreal Engine 4 technology will no doubt power many games for the upcoming devices.

According to Epic's Mark Rein, next-generation consoles need not only to be powerful but also to deliver a convenient experience to their owners.

"I've always said that the things in the next-generation that aren't just brute force hardware are all about the service and simplicity of the experience - the things that make it as fun and easy to get a PS4 game as it is to get a game on your iPad," Rein told CVG.

"If anything, they [next gen systems] are probably going to exceed that. That's going to be good for gamers - a really high level of convenience. Then to have it combined with amazing hardware specs that everybody will have, at I'm sure will be a reasonable price... it will be good for everybody."

What’s more, Rein also congratulated both companies on emulating the PC-like hardware configuration because it makes the development of games for these platforms much easier and much faster.

"It's really important for us because we know the PC, we know the evolution of the PC and we work closely with those vendors on those parts. There's nothing that we have to guess about - we know what the processors can do, we know what the CPUs can do and we're using those same parts on the actual development hardware that we use. It just makes it a lot smoother and it also means we can build on our particular strength."

Sony is expected to present the PlayStation 4 once again at E3 2013 while Microsoft is rumored to unveil the Xbox 720 at the end of May.